Quicksand and Mistletoe ~ A Holiday Card From Me

The Christmas Holiday season is not happy for all. At times in my own life it has been bittersweet. 

Overshadowed by schmaltzy Hallmark Christmas movies, rife with Walton-Family-Like dinners around a flowery table, carols and presents and music and smiles. Christmas. Right.Wrong. For some, just wrong. To me, holidays can be fraught with landmines and quicksand. When I was growing up, the holidays brought long white-tableclothed layers of southern cooking with scores of cousins and aunts and uncles. Tight squeezes in the bosoms of very large aproned women I only saw once a year. "My, how you've grown! Now go take Grandma the baking soda." 
Somewhere in between the sweet banana pudding and Uncle Joe's smelly cigar, there were happy car rides with  Daddy on Christmas lights hunts and Mama (who hated Christmas) throwing hissy fits (it's a southern thing) with wooden spoons full of cherries meant for the meringue pie that landed on the linoleum floor instead.

I learned to dodge.
It also brought worries over money, arguments that kids shouldn't overhear through the bedroom door, and the ever present reality that some adult  somewhere would get too intoxicated or high as the evening progressed and old family scores to settle would ruin the last of the whipped topping goodness in my impressionable soul.Stomach aches. It always happened. 
So be careful when you longingly dream over those perfect Christmas candid shots on Facebook and Instagram. Nobody's family is perfect. Nobody's life is immune to addiction or alcoholism, depression or stress - even when they try to hide behind a filtered screen. Now that I have my own crew of flawed holiday traditions, I see those generational threads of dysfunction pop up occasionally in the midst of mistletoeing and whispered conversations at the kids' table. I hear them. And I remember. 
Children and adults need a safe place to Christmas. Over the years I've managed to re-purpose my unpredictable lineage into happier spaces for my own kids and grandchildren. That's the thing about painful memories. We have the power to change the way we create the future.
Whatever your situation - and God bless you if you are lucky enough to have one of those Walton Family scenes at your address - I DO believe it's a good thing to honor our spiritual and festive traditions, spiritual or secular. But for some, the season is excruciatingly lonely and sad. Pressured in the quicksand, memories rise to the surface. 
 Not everyone will celebrate this day or this season. There won't be a card for them, so I wrote one. 

To All .....
......whose children are not coming home and will never come homeI wish you peace and fragrant memories
...who never knew their father or mother I wish you nighttime visitations in the form of dreamswords and whispers in your knowing placeto help you understand
...never had a happy childhood ChristmasI pray you make your own holiday so beautiful and full of wonder as an adulton your own terms, in your own way, wholly and deeply meaningfuljust. for. you.
To All...who live with abuse, chronic illness, poverty or griefI wish you strengthin leaving,  strength in staying, strength in rememberingwisdom and abundance and self-care

And if you are alone

I hope the Spirit of Christmas makes you rich with palpable joy with NEWNESS and anticipation (!) 'til it bubbles over right down to your socksmelted like hot chocolate that lost its cupand keeps you warm at night
Know that life is full of wonderful peoplejust waiting to know who you are

To All ...whose children will call from jail or rehabI wish you calm in the midst of your fear
....who children are sick and in need of a miracleI wish you words to pray and an audience with your Maker
To All.......who felt as though an alien ship dropped you into the house of your birth parentsmay you learn to parent yourself with the kindness and insight that comes from loving YOU and then give that gift to your own children may the cycle be unbroken
To All whose homes are silentwhere no none speaks but in angerMay you only speak in loveor not at all

To All....whose empty nests are emptier than they'd hopedI wish you years of bringing your parenting to a new level where letting go feels like flying
To All...whose families live far far awayI wish you warm breezes that speak of hugs
To All.......whose children will sleep in a car tonight, under a bridge, or in a shelterI wish that you will only see the quiet adoration in the trusting eyes of your childand that every star in the cold night sky leads you HOME 

To All .....whose time is shortI wish you arms of Love and whispers of the God-kindso that your family will never be alone and you can leave in peace
And to All..who hear "I love yous" but know it's just an annual Christmas ruseI pray you speak loving fire that burns and pierces and calls for nothing in return but truth 
To All...

whose child became a casualty of addiction or mental illnessI wish a reunion with a healthy child
To All who knows not where your Loved One is tonightI wish a phone call
If your fresh-faced child fights in a warI wish an end to the insanity and a laying down of arms
And To All..whose arms are empty today for whatever reasonI wish a visitation
of peace

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Expansion

I've been thinking a lot about time lately. How much we have. How much we don't have. How much we lose doing stupid stuff. And how much we gain when we remember that worrying about time only robs us of time. 

I don't want TIME to slow down for me. I want to expand my awareness to such a degree that every freakin' second matters. 


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Photo: Pixabay

The Doll Box

It is tradition to re-post The Doll Box during peace week. 

Some kind of magic comes over Bloggingham this time of year. We need to remember...

The Doll Box

“Put them in the pot, Mimi, just that way.”
I planted the last black-eyed Susan in the clay pot on the deck, richly purple and staring at me with an eye in the center of royalty's colored fall beauty.I dug and rearranged and poured in fertilizer. Watered. Played in the dirt."Plant one more in the pot, Mimi. She'd like it that way.""They remind me of her," I said out loud. "The dark ones she loved best. The black-eyed ones I don't care for, but I plant them anyway because she loved them so. I think they look disheveled and untidy - if a flower can be that way - and as she could be in the morning times. Her hair a mess and a cigarette over coffee, frying bacon at 5am so you'd have a great start to your day, wrinkled robe and a smelly kitchen. One bright spot of colorful charm – like my black eyed susan - was you, Papa."I stopped planting.I looked up.
My Papa stood looming over me with that jovial smile of his, a burst of sunlight behind his balding head and a brightly gleaming twinkle in the midst of the smile I adored. I was still unbalanced with a trowel in one hand and a pile of dirt in the other which prevented me from jumping immediately into his arms, but it didn't seem to matter; a warm wind blew straight through the curl hanging down the front of my right shoulder and moved it behind me to rest on the back of my sweater. I was sure of it. My Papa was always telling me to get my hair out of my face. No surprise to me now.
“I've been watching you, Mimi."I laughed.
"Well you know she had to have things just right. Two purple here, one pink there, large petaled, small-petaled and a very straight row or you had to start all over."He laughed."I remember."

I fixed my eyes upon the face of the man who held the key to my heart ever since the day I took my first breath. I put the trowel down, the dirt fell from my fingers and I found myself sitting in the fall sunlight, listening to leaves drop playfully from the trees that surrounded me. I watched them fall almost on command at his huge overgrown feet that were firmly planted in front of me. Steel-toed shoes, huge shoes, painful shoes, important shoes.
It would take him forty-five minutes in the mornings before work to lace them up. Rheumatoid arthritis claimed his quality of life, pain a constant companion, everyday tasks a monumental chore - and yet he rarely missed work (thirty-three years in a furniture plant) and most days he tilled the garden out back in the evenings. For today, I was content to sit at his feet and plant flowers. He was there to give me a warm breezy hug. Of course, I knew he wasn't really there.
Was he?
Resigned to never again help him unlace the knotted shoestrings that strangled too tightly across his tender feet, I turned away to wipe a tear.I miss him still."I've been watching you - you and the peace globes" he said.I smiled and stood up. He was right.Pansies could wait.

"I know, Papa. I've known for some time. You always give me courage when I need it, inspiration when I've lost it, and the biggest laughs....I get the most joy from your far-flung sense of humor. It is with me still." He roared a belly laugh I thought I'd never hear again this side of Heaven. It nearly rocked me off balance, causing me to drop the flat of pansies on the deck, so deep it was, so rich. So Papa.
"I need to ask you! Papa! I have so much to ask you. I don't know what to do about.....Will you stay?"
"Mimi," he said with that tsk tsk expression, "I need to ask you a question."
I sat back down, wondering somehow if I'd done something wrong. Had I gotten it all wrong? Does he want to talk about the marbles? Yes, that must be it. The marbles. He wants to tell me how he made them. He'll tell me and I'll tell my readers and they'll tell people and he'll explain it all.
I waited.His eyes to me looked young, as young as he must have been the day he married my pansy-stricken grandmother. They were in the prime of their lives and so in love, both prepared to begin a new life. And now, they were both gone. I had her pansy pots and her azalea bush and her quirkiness. He had memories not to be shared with a granddaughter but memories I saw playing behind the youthful grin. I did not let on. But I knew there were stories he must - he surely must - somewhere - somehow - still share with her."Ask, Papa. I'll tell you anything you want to know,” digging a new opening in the dirt for one more yellow pansy.
"Why? Why, Mimi?..........why do you need so many?"
"Because she said if you planted enough of them really close together it would make the bouquet brighter and....."

"No, Mimi. Why do you need so many peace globes?"
I stopped digging, puzzled.
"I don't need them, Papa, they just keep coming. Through my mail and in the back way. In the middle of the night. In the morning. In the evenings. All colors, all creeds, all walks of life. All species, all reasons, some frivolously made, some seriously woven and others with a single signature. Those I like, too."He sighed.
Had I disappointed him? Was that the wrong answer? What does he want me to say?
If there's one thing about my Papa that was always the best thing - it was his deliberate ability to cut through my facade and get to the truth -usually without a word, never with a scold, and any "serious conversation" he made with me always came on the palpable presence of one who loved me so unconditionally I could never have doubted his intent for my good or his wish for my clear understanding. Laden with well-worn common sense wisdom, I soaked it up often, playing carefully at his painfully laced shoes which criss-crossed in front on me in the living room floor at the bottom of the old leather recliner he loved.And today, I felt much like that seven-year-old.
Papa had one more story to tell.
"Do you remember the dolls, Mimi? The 100 Dolls?"
"Oh yes, Papa. I still have them. I keep them in the box for safekeeping. They are in perfect condition though the box is yellowed now and torn on the edge. I still see your address, your name, the paid postage stamp and the tape."
He suddenly got a serious look. "I remember the day you asked me for them. We were thumbing through a catalog and you squealed with delight. "One hundred dolls!! How could 100 dolls come in one box?" you asked.
“I remember,” I said. "They costs one dollar and we had to send away for them all the way to New Jersey and add our postage fee. I was so excited and couldn't wait to get them in the mail. I think I was seven? Yes, just about that age."
"Open them, Mimi. They hold a secret. Open the box."
I'm writing this story at my usual perch at the table but of course, in my mind's eye I am there, on the porch with my Papa and we are planting pansies and the sun is hot and the leaves are falling and I don't want to leave. We are having such a lovely day. All is right and he has chosen to visit me now. I don't want to break the spell. I don't want to open the box.....but it is there. It is there in front of me, on the table.I picked it up, put my reading glasses on, trying to make out the fine print. I reach for a magnifying glass to help but for some reason, I put it down. I couldn't. I couldn't look. I just couldn't.
And when have you ever been able to disobey him? Never. And when have you ever disappointed him? Sometimes. And will you do that today? No.I picked it up again.
Bulk Rate. US Postage Paid. Newark, N.J. Permit No.4396.100 Dolls Dept R285 Market StreetNewark, N.J

What's so special about this old box of dolls? They're plastic and probably a few are missing. Pink. Flimsy. Tiny little things. Not at all like I.....
"Right," said Papa, " you were disappointed. You were disappointed when they arrived a few weeks later. I could see it in your face. I never forgot how cute it was when you said, "NOW I know how they got so many dolls in one box. They don't look like the picture in the magazine at all. They are very small and I think I might even break them." "So you sat at the kitchen table night after night and lined them up. Trying to figure out which was a cook and which was a nurse and which was a girl and which was a boy. I told you that they all have a face and they all have a voice, even if they are on the small side. You made up stories to go with them and then, once you'd brought them to life, there was a sadness about the way you stored them away. Back in the box. Back in the box. Always back in the box."He shook his head.
This was not going to be easy. What does he want me to see? There won't be an obvious blue world globe-like marble sitting there this time, we're talking about prissy dolls for a prissy girl who turned into a prissy woman who has no idea why she's crying at her keyboard in the middle of this unfinished story.Until......
I decided to open the box.

And there it was. Something I'd forgotten about. On top of my dolls in the lower right corner was a matchbox size toy. He'd sent away for that too. It came with my dolls. "Tricky Dogs" They were magnets. One white dog. One black dog. When you start to play with them, they always gravitate toward each other. After forty years the magnet is still strong. I turned them over in my hands I read the back of the box.
Directions: Place one Tricky Dog on a surface (polished wood or glass) Push the other Tricky Dog up to it from behind, or sweep the second Tricky Dog in a half circle around the first one. Watch them twirl!

My tabletop is made of glass. I took the black one and put him up front, made a sneak attack by the white one and voila! the black dog began to spin in a circle - in an energetic frenzy - and aligned itself with the other one smashing into him, wagging their magnetic tails and gravitating together: smooching, the way only magnets can. Most of the time I played with the dolls, but Papa......he would rather I lay aside the Barbie doll brain and chase my dream around the glass top. He was like that. Always dropping life lessons in my lap, at inopportune times like today, when I'd rather be planting pansies.
I laughed. I'd forgotten the hours of entertainment we'd had trying to make the dogs do something else. I tried to separate them so many times - so like me to want to even argue with electrons and atoms - but they always ended up smacking into each other no matter what I did and the twirling little dance always ended with a dog collision. Inevitable. Worked every time. Without fail.The globes, Papa. They all spin their own way and yet they eventually make their way towards one another spinning together and with one purpose. Is that right?
Now my grownup mind understands such things. I know there really is no "trick" - I know they're just heavily plastered metal toys with magnet skates on the bottom - but I'm not a grownup today. I'm a seven year old on the floor with my Papa and we are playing from the box he mail ordered for me in the 1960's. And I am laughing. The dogs still make me laugh.
I sighed. This observation is just too obvious. Magnets. Globes. Spinning earth balls. Earth Science. I get it. I get it. I turned to him and said, “I know all about this little analogy. I went to college and got a degree since you've been gone ya know. And anyway, I need to finish planting these pansies and get them all in a straight line the way she would....the way she would.....Papa?”
Papa?
He was gone.
And I was left with a tabletop full of little pink dolls piled on top of each other, delighted to be free of the box, crisscrossing on top of one another and laid crosswise in the jumbled life of another doll, too many for a seven year old to count, too tiny for a middle aged woman to see in great detail and yet.....somehow I knew they'd been waiting for just this hour to make their second debut into my life. Pink. Plastic. Fragile. Soft spoken. And yet....when I put them all together they make an enormous pile.
Like my globes.
“Why? Mimi why? Why do you need so many?”
I never answered his question. That must be why he left. I suppose he is angry with me. I'll have to tell him another time about the blogger from Hong Kong and the man from Singapore and Idaho met Japan and tomorrow Italy promised to email Turkey....Israel and Poland and Tennessee and Michigan is helping Ireland make a globe and it doesn't matter how small their blogs may be, they all have a face and all have a voice and they just want to speak their ....oh never mind.Hmmm.....It's been forty years and I still haven't played with all those dolls. No time like the present.

So, I took them out of the box. One by one. 
A nurse, a dancer, an Indian man, two clowns, Spanish people, a ballerina, a little girl, a man speaking, a roping cowboy, a smiling cowgirl, a Buddhist monk, a Chinese man, a Mexican hat dancer, a Gypsy girl playing a tambourine, Bolero dancers, Little Bo Peep, all nationalities, all creeds, all expressions, all costumes of origin and a world of imagination at my fingertips that now played alone without the fumbling arthritic hand of the man who gave them to me so long ago.......a Peruvian girl, a small child playing ball, a colonial doll with a full skirt taking a bow (My favorite. She bowed a lot in those pre-pencil skirt days). I remembered how his hands were so large and gnarled, fumbling with the small creatures as they fell in his lap. I would laugh and we would start the dance again. The Buddha man would twirl with the Peruvian woman while the little boy with the ball - perhaps it was a jack-in-the-box - sat quietly in the middle of it all. They all got along in my peaceful box universe. The dolls in my box lived in one world, dancing and spinning around. "I'll get that for you, Papa,” I said, “ the lady from Spain would like to dance with the Russian ballerina now if you don't mind........Papa!?”

I looked up from the land of pink twirling peace and saw a tear roll down his cheek and land on his steel-toed shoe. I could tell he longed for our pink doll world of friendly global dancers and I so wanted to never see him sad again. “My life went sailing by," he said, "like a thin silk pansy leaf falling on the wisp of a breeze. I blinked and it was gone. Not much older than you are today. So much left to do. So much left to say. Many more flowers to plant. Many more stars to catch. More dances to dance. My work was not done...... But you knew that, didn't you, Mimi?
I did?
“All I know, Papa, is that I wasn't there that day. I canceled our outing and you left without me. You and grandmother went to the doctor and after that day, I never saw you again. Not ever again. I was angry because you did not say goodbye. I was angry that I did not say goodbye. And I longed to tell you all my tales and all my stories. I've waited for you to tell me what to do. “
I put down the dolls and looked at his wisdom worn face, anxious for the answers that I needed. But he had a way of making me figure it out for myself. This day was no different.
“You do not need me to tell you what to do. I am proud of you and you are doing just fine. Just remember one thing: It takes all the dolls in the box to make the world a beautiful place, Mimi. . They can't hear what the other one has to say unless you introduce them to one another and set their feet to dancing. Take them out of the box.”

Just take them out of the box.That's it? That's the secret? Take them out of the box? But what about the globes? And the marbles? I jumped up to give him a hug the way I always did but he was gone.

In the bottom of the box I found a piece of yellow paper. It had my name on it, folded, in my grandmother's handwriting. I opened it. It was a speech I'd made in church for a Christmas program when I was 3 years old. He'd tucked it away in the bottom of my doll box. I smiled as I remembered that the best part of that day had been running down the church aisle and jumping into his white-sleeved arms for a hug and a kiss. If I ever doubted what my grandfather gave to me, and continues to instill in me even now, it is the simple power of love and a respect for all creatures large and small - pink and Peruvian.
And that, my friends, is all we need.

Join us Wednesday, November 4, 2020 for the 15th year of BlogBlast For Peace.

Our theme is "Peace in the Time of Quarantine

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My New Year's Revolution 2019

You can say what you want about resolutions. I usually don't make them on the new day of a brand new year with 364 daunting days stretched out in front of me. But this year I decided to make one that applies to every little and large thing I might want to work on. Resolutions should be daily intentions with no shame or expectation attached.  Turning. Revolving. Always learning. A twist on an ancient and wise quote, here's my simple 2019 revolution. 
If you are wanting to see change in someone else,  first make whatever change you need to see in yourself. 

So. I'm working on myself.
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Recently Published With a Little Help From Jacqui Brown and Her Mojo

Jacqui Brown is a comedian, writer, successful author, speaker, life coach, and friend. I am so excited to see my story published in her inspiring new book The Mojo Manual (available right now at Amazon). It was an exciting day in Bloggingham Palace!

"Streisand and The Great Black Book," is a story I wrote about reaching for your dreams in the face of adversity... with a little help from Barbra. I am thrilled to see it included in a manuscript whose purpose is to uplift and inspire people.

Jacqui wants to help others live their best lives. Her journey began many years ago on the Hollywood scene (once upon a time she was a bubblegum commercial girl!) which led her through a myriad of life's ups and downs to find her purpose and peace in this world. How lucky are we that she chooses to share (NO holding back!) her life lessons with us.  She's hysterical, wise, authentic, compassionate, and has lived enough life to know a few things the rest of us just might need to hear.

I met her as jbwritergirl many moons ago right here on this blog in the glory days of the Blogosphere. Remember those?  She still finds time to blog and is very active on social media. She is known especially for her original #leafquotes and was recently featured on The Fix website as well.

Image: Jacqui Brown

Jacqui is married to two-time Grammy winning jazz  musician and recording artist, Paul Brown and lives in California. Together, they make quite a team of positivity and light in this crazy world we live in. My kind of folks.

The beautiful story of a dog named Beau

Author Jacqui Brown and her dog Miles

The blog is called LIVING FORWARD: New Rules You'll love her wit and charm!
Here's a  link to her website to check out her books!   Jacqui, thank you for allowing me to be a #MojoMaker. I wish you immense doses of MojoMuse and continued success with your writing. You are making a difference with every book, every story, and every leaf!!! I am thrilled to be included in your newest book!
Click HERE to read.  Available on Amazon and bookstores -wherever books are sold.

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Monday Mimisms ~ Where Does Your Light Come From?

Do you realize we most often look for light 

outside ourselves?

in the trees

in windows 

on the ceiling

What would happen if all of us  looked for it inside ourselves instead? The world would be so brilliantly illuminated we wouldn't need to look up  at all Image: Pixabay Follow Me

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